157. Update on world crisis: Toyota, OPEC
Uncategorized — By Dmitry Podolsky on December 28, 2008 at 4:39 pm
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Dmitry Podolsky has got his PhD from Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics. He currently works as postdoc at Case Western Reserve University. He is also one of the editors of NEQNET.
A couple of recent news that have got my attention and may seem interesting for you, too:
- OPEC agreed to seriously cut oil output. Precisely, cartel agreed to make a record, that is, strongest in history, cut in output about 2.2 million barrels per day – that is 3% cut, am I write? Fine, what is the result? The result is virtually zero, the oil prices continued to fall. I think, they will continue to fall further since the key factors influencing the oil prices – collapse of the world reserve currency, speculative growth of oil futures, Obama’s election
(republicans are connected to oil industry, democrats – to competitive industries) – did not start fully influence the turmoil’s development yet. (Via Asterrot.) - Even Toyota will lose money this year since car sales slow (NY Times). I was especially impressed by one phrase of Toyota’s president Mr. Watanabe dropped at the press-conference: “The change in the world economy is of a magnitude that comes once every hundred years”. Now, CEOs are paid to be politically-correct, so I would really want to stretch and rethink the word “change” in this phrase. The word “Crisis” sounds more filled for me. If so, are we to experience the new Great Depression?
2 Comments
I like the Science Factor and fact foundation that you have established within this blog…
However when I hear on the media “Depression” I cringe. While many industries will probably suffer and be affected I look at it this way. Innovation will occur.
We do not have a cash problem, we have an idea and execution problem.
I do not poses THE TRUTH, but a Truth when I say I see the universe as unlimited, we only look at things from our limited viewpoints.
I revisit that: energy is never created or destroyed it moves from one form to another, and entropy.
The Death of the Dinosaurs while tragic for them was the fuel for us. The Death of one thing feeds another. Life eats itself.
I want to encourage innovation, and new ways at looking at “Challenges”
The words we say are what we own and manifest in life and business.
How can we encourage this conversation to communicate not just how things are – but how they CAN BE?
Cheers,
Kevin
Dear Kevin
This was very very inspirational, thanks.
Yes, I agree with you in a sense, the ultimate reason of this particular financial crisis is that we have no idea how to properly estimate the potential of a given company – how much return per investment it will give in a distant future (well, also we don’t have a slightest idea how to properly estimate prices of futures
)
Sure, the ultimate problem is the absence of long range predictive power in our theories
Cheers
Dmitry.
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